A Year in Review 35

A Year in Review 35

October 2014 - October 2015, 12 months, 5 holidays, 5 sporting events, and one BIG announcement.   

October 2014

Our time in Gadgrith had come to a close, Chewie was already missing his freedom, log fires and treats from Grandad Donovan, but was ready to settle back into life at home.
My next twelve months were to be devoted to looking after Clare, Chewie and myself ensuring life was the best we could achieve.

November 2014

After the previous success of the Rat Race Cousins, we had opted to do it all over again.  This time the #Running4Spud team of Danny, Craig, James, Natalie, Gilly, Josh, and Daavv were joined by Daavv's wife Tilly Bean and our great friend Beewell, who is always up for injury on any outing we do. The weather held off this year, but with the increasing danger of each obstacle I think we may be giving this one a miss in the next few years and opting for safer events

In a moment of madness, and pushing myself towards the goal of completing a marathon I signed up to take part in the Blackpool Half Marathon.  My training had to be upped (or even started) and I needed someone to help motivate me over the next couple of months. Thankfully, Rosh was on hand and also signed up for the event.  Training had begun

November 17th my day went completely bonkers, the Episode of Countdown that featured yours truly was aired and social media went berserk! I have never experienced anything like this, and still nearly 12 months on I get messages via twitter, facebook and G+ about the infamous event. There is far to much to write a synopsis of here, so please find the full details on the blog


To end November in style and ticking another new destination off the travel list, Clare had booked us a week in Budapest for our anniversary.  What a great week, awesome food, amazing city and perfect company.  Budapest is a beautiful city and well worth a visit.

December 2014

Continuing our family tradition, the Davies family met for an Early Christmas.  This time we all met in the lovely surroundings of the Cromer.  A few days of pre-christmas gatherings, Christmas dinner and great laughs.  I am a proud Davies and love my family.

Even with the early Christmases and cheer all around, I finally met my weight goal target.  A couple of years ago I set myself the goal of weighing less than 13 stone.  When I got on the scales at Slimming World and saw the 12 stone marker I was elated! over the moon! I had reached a target I once thought a pipe dream

The Bolton News picked up on this as a story and yet again I was a feature in the paper receiving very positive comments, which is a success on it's own in our local paper

Even though the weather was frightful, Rosh and I were still out training three times a week for our looming 13.1 mile jaunt.  I was happy to have him by my side and pushing me on at every lull.

December also saw my 100th cinema visit of the year with St. Vincent

January 2015

To celebrate our 5 years together I booked a surprise weekend away to Amsterdam for Clare and I.  Clare had initial reservations of my holiday booking skills as this is normally a job for her as our resident guru.  All anxiety had gone though once we checked into our awesome hotel.  Even though the "night-life" of Amsterdam is not our cup of tea, the city itself is an experience and a lovely break for Clare and I to start the year with.

2015 this was our year, surely!

February

In February 2015 I hit an all time low, and it was great!  My target for weight loss had been 12 stone 12.  I had recently reset that goal at Slimming World at a staggering 11 stone 11, meaning a total loss of over 13 stone.  How could I not feel awesome?

Chewie was not feeling too awesome though as it was time for him to lose two little pals of his, Stephen and the twins became just Stephen, I can't think of anymore euphemisms, but I am sure you get the picture.  Knowing this was for the best, it was still hard to seeing this little bundle of love looking so sad.  He kept escaping from his cone head, so after some advice we opted for a child's onsie to protect him....and he looked adorable!

After my experience with Countdown, we had decided to go back to the studios for a tour taking my niece and nephew with us. The BBC Tour at Media City Salford was a great day.  We visited the sets of Blue Peter, BBC News, Countdown, sat in The
Voice chairs, and the kids even got to present the news and weather.  Brilliant experience and well worth the money.  To top off the weekend perfectly, my Ma had used her Groupon powers and booked the family into a Paint-balling Experience nearby.  Adorning our camouflage gear and loading our weapons, battle commenced.  Absolutely fantastic weekend with family again, although I was a little scared of how military Clare was whilst in her paint-balling gear, she was assassin-like!

March

For Christmas, Clare's Dad and Step-mum had bought us a weekend away in Shap Wells, thankfully it was a hotel that took dogs as well so Chewie joined us.  The weather was seriously windy, the frost in the air was colder than we had anticipated, but Shap was great. A lovely weekend and we know that Chewie was loving it too

Chewie's birthday was a couple of days later, and he was full of birthday beans.  I know he is "just" a dog, but the amount of love he has brought to our little family and how much he means to Clare and I, there is no way we are not finding a way to celebrate this.  Joined by all the grandparents we showed this little puppy how much family means and what he means to us

Clare hit her target weight in March as well, looking fantastic and beautiful! Not saying she is not amazingly beautiful anyway, but now Clare could feel it in herself now she had achieved her goal.  Clare's confidence had risen and after the last couple of years she had lost a lot of her smile, that was now back and beaming.

My Dad followed suit only a couple of weeks later hitting his target weight.  I always thought my Dad would not really connect with Slimming World as he didn't seem like the person to be happy sitting in groups meetings discussing dietary requirements and cooking, but I was wrong and a few months later, my Dad was looking awesome!

To end the month we took Chewie to Nanna Sue and Kev's caravan in North Wales and let him run free on the beach.  

April

Feeling slightly under-prepared for the upcoming Blackpool half marathon, I had decided to do the Decathlon Belmont Duathlon but needed someone to join me, Daavv had pushed me into doing the Manchester to Blackpool midnight cycle last year, so he was my obvious target.  On possibly the windiest day in the NorthWest we headed out for a 6k run followed by a 12k cycle and another 6k run.  Great event, but the headwind has put me off cycling for a while!

So here it was, the event we had been training for, the Blackpool Half Marathon. Unfortunately Rosh had some very bad news only a few weeks before with the passing of his Nanna, but also some great news with the birth of his nephew.  Training for Rosh had been reduced dramatically and he pushed me to aim for our initial target of a sub-2 hour run and he would not be too far behind.  Crossing the line in 1 hour 49 mins was worth all the training I had put myself through in the last few months

Unfortunately the celebrations were short lived as Clare was complaining about stomach pains.  Two days earlier, Clare had done a pregnancy test which came back as a very faint positive.  Minutes after completing the Half we were on a hastened journey to Bolton Hospital to confirm our fears.  Classed as a failed pregnancy, we have another angel looking after us.

May

Taking time for ourselves again after our 4th loss, we ventured off to warmer climes.  Flying to Makardi, Egypt for a cruise and stay holiday.  One split week in resort and a week cruising the Nile with daily excursions.  It was here we met two fantastic couples who made our holiday perfect.  Mamma Sue and Pappa Paul, Clare 2 and Johnny.  Exactly what we needed and with great company, Egypt will always hold a place in my heart with great friends and incredible sights.

As we did so much in Egypt, I would struggle to summarise everything here, but our travel blog is a little more in depth.  Please have a read if you get a couple of minutes

June

Living up to our Travel Bug lifestyle, only a few weeks after returning from Egypt we were again on foreign shores.  With an initial stop in the sleepy town of Maiori on the Amalfi Coast, we ventured to our family in Salerno for celebrations.  I had always wanted to buy Clare a pizza from the restaurant in San Eustacchio as it is probably the best pizza in Italy, and built on my grandparents land.  I was not wrong in my estimations as Clare stated that her Lasagne Pizza was the best pizza she had ever tasted. Job done!

We took our family back to Maiori to show them where we had been a couple of days prior, whilst on the bus trip over the Amalfi Coast line Clare was having similar feelings to the boat trip a year earlier on the way to Capri.  We put two and two together but had to wait till be arrived back home to make sure.

July

Our suspicions were confirmed.
We were back in Bolton Hospital having an early pregnancy scan.  The sonographer, who had carried out most of our previous scans, knew Clare's record.  She was happy to confirm that everything looked perfectly fine except one little concern.  The egg that had been fertilised had come from Clare's right ovary, this ovary was the one that had the delivery tube removed months earlier.  Medically, there is not a viable option for this little egg to be here but miraculously it was!

Over the moon, but also scared of what was to come we settled in for a rocky journey.  Deciding not to tell family and friends for fear of breaking more hearts we tried to keep our little present a secret for as long as possible. This has been harder than we expected

A few weeks earlier, Clare and I had signed up to join the Beewell's in the newest event on the calendar, The Colour Rush Obstacle Run.  A 5k run with inflatable fun objects whilst being pelted with powder paint.  Due to our recent discovery, Clare had to be protected with bubble wrap for the next 9 months and would not be taking part in this no matter how spongy the obstacles.  She was gutted not to take part, but I did pinch a medal for her!

Finalising an awesome month, my Brother and Cousin became IronDudes.  Completing the Bolton Ironman in style.  A 2.4 mile swim in Pennington Flash, a 112 mile cycle round Lancashire and then a looping Marathon finishing in Bolton Town Centre.  I cannot tell you how proud I am of my IronDude family and I was there to support them as much as possible knowing that I would not partake in such an event, mainly down to wanting a life instead of constant training (I would need to!)

August

With the busy year so far, we struggled to fit in our love of camping so the Clitheroe food festival was calling.  We booked the same campsite as the year before and the weather to boot.  A glorious weekend with great food and beverages.

I also interviewed my brother and cousin after their monstrous achievement and delved into the insight of a marathon runner.  You can see the interviews here

The first stage of our pregnancy journey started  in August in the 12 week scan.  Our little "sparkle" of hope was coming along well.  Clare had no symptoms of the previous pregnancies, baby was growing fine, things could not be better and we both left with high hopes

September

Clare has been pushing me to utilise my drive for self improvement and a yearning for extra knowledge to become a student again.  I signed up to a photography course in Bolton which is due to start in December.  Although it hasn't started yet, I have been practicing as much as possible with our camera and already starting to annoy Clare and Chewie.  I am really looking forward to this new challenge




Just to keep us on our toes, Clare has had a couple of scares with Baby Sparkles but each time we have proven that we are not giving up and will fight everything that comes our way.

I was asked to join Beewell for our third event this year as his swimmer had dropped from the relay triathlon.  Not wanting Beewell to miss out on this great event I jumped at the chance and donned my trisuit.  I was thrilled to be asked to fill the position and our team was superb.  Again, full details of this event can be found here

October

So my final month of my 35th year and looking back it has been a pretty eventful year. More highs & lows with a sting but again family and friends supporting us all the way.

I have signed up for the Malta Marathon which is to take place in February, and with training going well there is only one thing that will stop me going.  Baby Sparkles is due to join our loving family the day before the run date!  We have been told that Clare will more than likely not go full term, but if the little bugger decides to hold on and stay nice and warm then I may be running round hospital corridors instead

We have been for our 20 week scan which confirmed to us that Sparkles is doing great, developing strong and well, and although Clare is on strict bed rest at the moment, we are in high hopes.  We have told the whole family now we are more confident and approaching safer shores, but we still have everything crossed as I am sure everyone else does too.

Just to throw a curve ball into our lives as things are looking up, I received notice from the company I work for will be closing it's Bolton Doors just before Christmas and redundancy is on the cards.  I am sure there is a silver lining to this, but maybe we just need a Christmas Miracle

So Birthday Eve, and I will be on my way to the cinema with Rosh and Dip.  It is October 21st 2015, a day well known in film history or film future as it was.  Cineworld have opted to show all the Back to the Future trilogy on the date the Marty McFly & Doc Brown travel to.  There are no consumer price hoverboards or self fastening laces and we are 14 Jaws films shy of the estimated franchise.  Looking at the last 12 months of my own timeline, 2014/2015 is one of those years that I could have done with a visit from my future self, telling me to keep my chin up and fight on, things will be great but life has a few more problems to throw at you.  This year has been a real rollercoaster, awesome times but life's little problems keep you on your toes.  Life is out there to test us and believe me, we keep getting stronger.

Chewie has become an integral part of our family and is looking forward to becoming a big brother.  He is a stunning little puppy with a great character.  Whilst Clare is still on strict bed rest Chewie has become her protector whilst I am out working (for how long) or out on long runs.  He is my little shadow and company on our long walks.  We know that once our little Sparkles joins our family he will become a big part of their lives too.

So bring on my 36th year, it is going to be incredible.